


Let Him Be, Let Him Rest (by force, if necessary)

by lorata



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, Healing, Humor, Mabari, Pets, Post-Canon, Protective Siblings, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2018-12-20 13:02:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11921469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lorata/pseuds/lorata
Summary: “Your mission: make sure Cullen doesn’t work too hard, all right? See that he eats some food now and then, and gets some rest. You have my permission to drag him to bed and sit on him until he sleeps, is that clear?”The dog sits up straight, lets out a sharp, determined bark. Mia grins. “Good boy,” she says, and gives it a tousle between the ears. “Off you go, then.”The newly-retired Cullen, now running a sanctuary for lyrium-addicted former Templars, is starting to wonder whether his mabari's sudden preoccupation with bringing him food and dragging him to bed at night is more than coincidence. Except that would be ridiculous... wouldn't it?





	Let Him Be, Let Him Rest (by force, if necessary)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [telophase](https://archiveofourown.org/users/telophase/gifts).



> Written as a treat for Fandom Giftbox 2017 for the prompt "Cullen and his mabari". Mentions of PTSD/addiction recovery, and a throwaway jab about Cullen's stupid roof in Skyhold because I will never, ever let that go.

Mia pulls her brother into a fierce embrace, and only barely stops herself from fussing with his hair and brushing it back to kiss his forehead the way she used to when he was a boy. He’s a man now, grown and battle-hardened, and he might be just past thirty but the shadows around his eyes and the scars that mark his skin make him seem much older. How long since he was the little boy who used to sneak away to the Chantry to watch the Templars train?

“Don’t look at me like that, like I’m some sad, underfed orphan,” Cullen says, rueful, and there’s a flash of the little brother in the twist of his lip, the way his nose wrinkles in exasperation. Mia laughs and kisses him on the cheek just to watch him sputter. “Maker’s breath, Mia, not in front of the hound! Leave a man his pride!”

“Oh, you mean this dog?” Mia kneels down next to the mabari, cups its giant skull in her hands and swings it back and forth. The mabari’s entire hind end wags in response. “You mean this big, precious, gorgeous baby? This pretty pupper with his handsome face and his big paws, this big boy right here? You don’t want me to tell your impressionable war hound embarrassing stories of the time you fell and broke your arm trying to climb the golem?”

Cullen throws up his hands. “If you’re going to corrupt my dog, at least have the decency to do it behind my back. I’m off to see if Branson needs any help setting up for dinner.”

Once he’s gone, Mia turns her attention back to the mabari. “I have a mission for you,” she says, looking it in the eye. The hound perks up, dropping back on its haunches and pricking its ears. It might have been Orlesian-bred but it’s still a Fereldan animal, and mabari blood runs true.

“I know my brother retired from the army,” Mia says. She has the Inquisitor and the Divine to thank for that, and one day Mia will be able to wrap her head around the magnitude of that. “I also know that Cullen wouldn’t know the meaning of retirement and relaxation if it propositioned him in a sleazy tavern.”

The mabari whines, tilting its head to one side, and Mia laughs, reaching down to scratch under its chin. “Sorry,” she says. “Your mission: make sure Cullen doesn’t work too hard, all right? See that he eats some food now and then, and gets some rest. You have my permission to drag him to bed and sit on him until he sleeps, is that clear?”

The dog sits up straight, lets out a sharp, determined bark. Mia grins. “Good boy,” she says, and gives it a tousle between the ears. “Off you go, then.”

 

* * *

 

It’s not that Cullen misses the war, or even the Inquisition itself. Divine Victoria (he’ll never get used to saying that, not really) granted him the land to take care of the recovering Templars, which provides him more than enough with which to occupy his time. Cullen tries to imagine himself actually retiring, playing chess or teaching himself to — what, exactly, what does one do at thirty-two with no occupation, learn to knit? Take up statue collecting? It’s all nonsense.

No, he’s glad for work, for the soldiers who need him, even if it means staying up all night because Sala had the terrors or old Hal is up with that cough again. It’s a different kind of purpose, no less meaningful or important, certainly, no matter what others might say, it’s just that it lacks a particular … structure that makes things a little difficult.

Battles, at least, have a beginning and an end. Missions have preparation, execution, and cleanup. His role in the Inquisition had been clear, and Cullen’s job had been to support his troops and send them wherever they were needed. Now he provides respite for good men and women whose minds and bodies were ravaged by the drug that kept them prisoner for years, a noble task that unfortunately has few benchmarks indicating when he can relax and take some measure of rest.

At least his bedroom here has a complete ceiling. Cullen will never live that one down.

He’s going over the list of current supplies, trying to decide whether they need to request a shipment or if they can wait another week, when something wet and heavy drops in his lap. Cullen looks down and manfully restrains a startled yelp at the sight of a half-chewed mountain nug corpse, slimy with saliva and oozing blood from several puncture holes in its hide.

“What in the —“ Cullen turns to see his mabari, sitting back on his haunches and staring at him with an expression of pleased expectation. “Ah,” he says. “This is — I see. A fine gift, pup, and I thank you. But I have only just eaten, you see, so why don’t you —“

The Commander actually growls, ears flattening back against his large skull, and Cullen stops. He did eat, didn’t he, he had some bread and a cut of meat for lunch, he knows he did, because not long after that Jensen asked him about meditation techniques, and then he’d worked with Sabine and Enzo on the possibility of clearing out the old rocky pasture —

Cullen blinks. The candle on his desk has burned close to the base, and the light outside has faded from the soft golden-yellow of mid-afternoon to a deep grey-blue as the sun sets behind the mountains. “Ah,” Cullen says, this time accepting defeat. He looks down at the nug again, and against all odds his stomach gives a traitorous rumble. Perhaps it is time to fetch himself some supper.

“All right, you rascal,” Cullen says. For a moment he wonders if he’s actually going to take the nug to the kitchens and ask Alanna to cook it for him so he won’t hurt his hound’s feelings before he comes to his senses. “You caught this, so you can have it. I’ll go find myself something, I promise.”

The Commander gives him a suspicious stare, but Cullen laughs and kneels down to press their foreheads together, scratching the dog beneath the chin. “You’re a good dog,” he says. “Come check on me in twenty minutes if you don’t believe me.”

The Commander does, and pretends he didn’t just scarf down an entire meal so that Alanna will toss him kitchen scraps, the scoundrel, but Cullen doesn’t let on.

 

* * *

 

It’s been years now since Cullen stopped taking lyrium, and the worst of the withdrawal is far behind him. Still, recovery is not a linear process, as he continues to tell the soldiers at the sanctuary, and some nights he still wakes in a cold sweat with the demons pressing at the inside of his skull.

Back at Skyhold the hole in his roof had been a blessing in situations like this, really. The chill would drive the last of the dreams away, shock him into wakefulness, and he’d force himself out of bed and to his desk, where there would always be work waiting for him. Here there was less of an ever-present crush of responsibilities, but even in the middle of the night someone will be awake with a similar problem to keep him company. Cullen has often wiled away the wee hours exchanging friendly sword blows with a former commander or teaching a shaky-handed lieutenant how to carve animals from soapstone.

The headache pounds in his temples, and Cullen moves to swing his legs over the side of the bed, except — he can’t. He can’t sit up, either. A heavy weight lies across his chest, and Cullen groans and flops back against the pillow. “If you don’t mind, pup, I’d like to get up and take a walk,” he says dryly. “Assuming that’s all right with you. You don’t actually outrank me, you know.”

The Commander raises his head, eyes shining in the dark, then drops it back down onto his paws with a dismissive huff. “Listen, you,” Cullen says, poking the dog between the eyes, not that it makes a difference. Shameless beast. “For your information, I’ve been having these dreams long before you got here. I know how to handle them. I’m not about to be nursemaided in my own quarters by my own mabari.”

The Commander only settles his weight more firmly and lets out a long, deliberate sigh. Cullen rolls his eyes, and yes, all right, in a moment he’ll shove the dog off and go for a walk, he is capable of moving the animal, it’s just that the weight is solid and heavy and a little comforting, not that he’ll admit it. Give it a few minutes to let the Commander think he’s won, catch him off-guard, that sort of thing, and then Cullen will … he’ll ………

He wakes in the morning when the birds take up a chorus outside his window, twittering and fighting each other for the prime real estate that is the handful of seeds on the corner of his windowsill. Cullen sits up — oh yes, of course, _now_ the dog has gone, what a surprise — and is pleased to find his headache is gone.

 

* * *

 

It continues on like this. After awhile Cullen starts experimenting just to see if he can skip a meal or push past a reasonable bedtime without the Commander trotting to his side and nudging him or tugging at his sleeve, but every time he finds himself stymied. It gets so the others start to notice, and if being fussed over by his dog was bad enough, having the men he’s meant to be taking care of start grinning and exchanging knowing looks whenever Commander shows up holding a sandwich wrapped in oilcloth from the kitchens is too much.

It’s easier for Cullen to start taking regular meal breaks and going to bed when he starts feeling tired, instead of when the backs of his eyes burn and he starts noticing that odd shaky nausea in his core. He can’t shake the feeling that he is indeed being nursemaided, but that also seems paranoid. The Commander is intelligent, but he is still an animal. It’s not like he could one day decide to start keeping tabs on Cullen’s schedule. He’s a _dog_ , for Andraste’s sake.

Unless …

No. No, that’s madness, and Cullen is not going to start entertaining ridiculous theories.

Besides, it’s not just him, which makes things a little better. The other night he caught the Commander sitting with Sala during one of her night terrors, letting her bury her face in his fur until she fell back asleep, which meant Cullen could head back to his quarters instead of having to talk her down. And it turns out that _apparently_ sticking to a semi-regular schedule when attempting to help a bunch of former Templars recover from lyrium addiction counts as setting a good example.

Not that the dog knew any of this. That would be ridiculous.

 

* * *

 

A few weeks after the visit home Cullen receives a letter from his sister. It’s full of the usual things, charming stories about his nephew and anecdotes of Mia terrorizing a passing trader who attempted to overcharge her for Rivaini fruit. Cullen chuckles a few times, endures the usual threats of what she’ll do to him if he fails to respond in a timely fashion, then turns over the paper and —

_I hope to hear you’re taking better care of yourself. Kiss the dog for me and tell him he’s a good boy._

Cullen looks sharply at the Commander, who flops over onto his back, pawing idly at a passing moth. “No,” Cullen says aloud. “She wouldn’t. Would she?”

The Commander yawns and whines until Cullen stops staring in suspicion and tosses him a treat.

 

* * *

 

(He only _very_ _briefly_ considers asking Leliana to investigate the possibility of collusion between his sister and his dog. He hears her laughter in his head for three whole days anyway.)

**Author's Note:**

> (Cullen has a name for his dog but refers to it as "Pup" almost exclusively, as per [ this tweet](https://twitter.com/bbattye/status/642591436341276672) by Brianne Battye)


End file.
